The territory of the Internet is a separate world with a huge amount of information, its own laws and rules, good and bad. As in real life, advertising plays an important (and one might say, leading) role. Representatives of companies are trying in every possible way to promote their product so that as many people as possible want to buy it. Everything is used: from targeted advertising on websites and social networks to mass publications of information, called spam mailings. Everyone who has a mailbox has noticed more than once letters that come from nowhere and carry some information that is useless to him. This method of notifying users is illegal, so the official representative offices of services where there is multiple placement of the same type of information are actively fighting this. So, what is spam and how to deal with it, you will learnfrom this article.
What is spam
As mentioned above, there is a certain type of content that does not carry useful information, but only advertises a product. Mass multiple placement of the same type of information is called spam. In general, there are two concepts of this word. The first, and true, is sending emails to an addressee who has no desire to receive them. The second meaning, which is now considered the most relevant, is active advertising, the purpose of which is to attract the most attention to the product through mass mailing. As a rule, such messages are similar to machine-made advertising text, the meaning of which is to state the essence of the product in a nutshell and emphasize its advantages. This is done because all email users have an initially negative attitude towards spam, and it does not linger in mailboxes for a long time, and the goal of spammers (distributors of this content) is to manage, during the time that a person recognizes a malicious email, to interest him with a catchy headline or another way to get attention.
Where spam is distributed
The first place where spam began to appear was email. Initially, it carried the purpose of viral advertising, and some users were interested in the product. But no longer for the reason that they need it, but rather because it was unusual to receive a letter to your e-mail, where they talk about an innovative way to make money. Over time, the popularity of e-mail began to decline, butToday, quite a large number of spammers specialize in e-mail mailings. Today, the mass placement of the same type of information has become a real scourge of social networks. This is a place where a large number of people accumulate, moreover, they are more mobile due to their age (the audience of social networks is from 16 to 40 years old), and as a result, more likely to be interested in the product.
How to deal with e-mail spam
The dissatisfaction of users of virtual mailboxes has reached such proportions that the creators of services have a need to solve this problem. Luckily, this was pretty easy to do. A so-called spam filter has been created. The principle of its operation is to redirect letters to the Spam folder from those mailboxes from which mass mailing is performed. Thus, it was possible to solve the problem of illegal advertising in postal services. However, some spammers still manage to bypass this protection by sending letters in small batches. But here the user himself can, by clicking on the button for marking the letter as garbage, permanently rid himself of "messages" from this address.
Social media spam
Repeated posting of the same type of information, repeated in meaning - this is the type of spam that is most common in social networks, on forums and in comments. Advertising is the meaning of such work of those who are engaged in viral mailing. Huge audience of VKontakte, Facebook,Twitter is potentially solvent, so promoting your product here is fertile ground for future sales. For example, in the largest VKontakte group, MDK, the audience is 6 million subscribers, which means that almost everything can be sold here. Spam via private messages is also widespread, the effectiveness of which is quite high, because it is usually directed at an already interested potential client.
Combating spam on social media
Despite the active "work" of spammers, the administration is also actively fighting their activities. Until recently, promoting your product in an illegal way was the only way to sell it, so a service was created, the prerogative of which was targeted advertising. Spam, however, has not become less popular, since one of its main advantages is its low cost, or rather zero. Also, when sending messages of the same type to community walls or in dialogues with other users, captcha protection appears, which prevents the actions of spam robots. In case of prolonged publication of the same messages, the account is subject to blocking. However, it is not possible to completely eradicate the mass placement of the same type of information.
How to protect yourself from spam
This question is asked by almost everyone who has encountered malicious emails at least once and realized how annoying it is. To keep your mailbox from being exposedmassive spam attack, you should not leave it open in places where other users can see it. Spammers use so-called parsers to collect a database of emails to which they will be sent. If you find unwanted messages in your mailbox, you should immediately mark them as junk.
It is almost impossible to protect yourself from spam on a social network, because it is present everywhere. However, if you are the owner of the community, then you can prohibit access to the publication of unauthorized users, timely delete those who distribute it in the comments.
You can also leave a complaint about a user who posts the same type of information multiple times.
Legal spam
Yes, there is one. The desire for cheap advertising of their product among sellers has not disappeared, so they create a subscription e-mail database of users who voluntarily agreed to join it. It looks rather strange, but when people see an attractive offer, they agree to accept it, leaving only their email address in return, which is instantly included in the seller's spam database, and he regularly sends various offers there.
Such mailing lists are not subject to blocking, since the user himself has agreed to receive the information contained in them. However, you can always unsubscribe from the mailing list.
Summarize
Multiple placement of the same type of informationcalled spam, which is today one of the main mass diseases of the Internet. In order not to get infected with this, it is enough to follow a number of simple rules, namely, do not “shine” your email and mark the spam block in a timely manner. This will be enough to protect yourself from mountains of informational garbage that hinders productive work.
